


Can't Sleep

by Alopex



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, it's not too graphic but there's a bit of violence in there, no shipping just interpersonal relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2297435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alopex/pseuds/Alopex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the events of Sock Opera, Dipper begins to be tormented by nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> So what was supposed to be a short, 500 word thing turned into this thing.
> 
> So a song that goes along perfectly with this fic in terms of tone is The Shrine/An Argument by Fleet Foxes; the song has four (three, really, but I digress) parts to it, and they all match up with sectors of the fic. I didn't want to interrupt the flow of my writing so I didn't put in times or links, but if anyone is interested in the exact divisions, please leave me a note and I'll let you know where the song matches up.
> 
> Song link: http://obsidianchameleon.tumblr.com/post/97203279565/thewreckords-fleet-foxes-the-shrine-an

Even in the dark of the night, the house never stood still. It always seemed to be creaking, rustling, rumbling. Tree branches scraped the walls outside as they swayed in the wind, and the denizens of the forest howled in the faraway mountains. But one quickly learned to sleep through it all – how else was one to get their rest?

Besides, Grunkle Stan worked them to the point where they'd pass out the moment they hit their pillows. Well, Mabel did at least. She couldn't ever recall having issues falling asleep, though she was quite worried for her brother, as she couldn't say the same for him.

The sweltering summer heat lasted long into the evenings these days, and Mabel woke up in the middle of the night feeling absolutely parched. She grasped for the water she kept on the table, but her eyes fell upon a shape on the other side of the room. Through the dark, she could make out her brother sitting up, hunched over with his arms crossed. Mabel could have sworn he was murmuring something under his breath.

"Dipper?" She called quietly. "You okay, bro?"

The boy reeled, scrambling like a startled animal. "Ah, Mabel! J-j-just go back to sleep."

Mabel sat up, suspicious. "Dipper, you know you can tell me when something's wrong."

"It's nothing, really."

"Dipper," Mabel stated firmly. "You remember the last time you said it was 'nothing.'" She got up and crossed the room, sitting on the edge of her brother's bed.

Dipper sighed heavily, shoulders slumping as he rubbed his arm. "It's Bill. Every time I fall asleep, he's in my dreams. It's been a week. At first he was just... There, floating in my dreams, you know how that's creepy enough as it is? But then it quickly started to get downright terrifying. I... I'm scared," he choked, shivering. "I'm scared I'll lose my body again. What if I get stuck that way? Do you know how lonely the dreamscape is?" He looked up, tears welling in his sleep-deprived eyes.

"Dipper," Mabel murmured, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You can't do this to yourself. You can't let _him_ do this to you. He's messing with your head. You need to get some sleep!"

Dipper paled, his eyes looking hollow. "You haven't seen the horrors he's shown me. The moment I shut my eyes it starts, it's-it's..." He trailed off, then shook his head. "No, I mustn't sleep! It'll only make it worse! He told me it would get worse with each night!"

"And you believed him? Dipper, you have to stay strong! You can't sacrifice your sleep for this, look at the state you're in."

Dipper shook his head fervently. "No, trust me, anything is better than what I've seen. I've never had dreams so vivid."

"Well, talking about the nightmare usually helps, right? You can tell me if you're comfortable."

"I really don't want to go into details," Dipper murmured. Mabel thought that was going to be it for that conversation, but her brother suddenly spoke up, his voice empty. "He knows my fears, he uses them to his advantage. It's not like something ever chases me, or there's scary monsters, it's not just a simple nightmare. It's like... It's like he gives me a real world, but it slowly starts breaking down into all the things I'm afraid of... After a few days of that, it's getting hard to figure out what's real and what's not. I figured that if I try not to sleep, I can just focus on my thoughts here, and be sure _this_ is what's real..."

Mabel looked at him thoughtfully as she rubbed his back. "Dipper, you can't just stop sleeping." Dipper looked up at her wearily, about to refute, but she quickly added, "But if you're that hard-set on not sleeping, I'd be better off keeping you company. Why don't we do something? Maybe you'll feel better later."

Dipper smiled weakly. "Thanks, Mabes."

"Let's go outside! There aren't any clouds, and it's really warm, so we could watch the stars!"

"Sure, that doesn't sound too bad."

The twins sneaked outside to the picnic area, lying down on a table as they watched the heavens slowly creak above as they rolled by, the occasional meteor slashing the sky. They giggled quietly, pointing out constellations they knew and ones they made up on the spot, telling outlandish stores about them. Despite his sheer exhaustion, Dipper felt a slight warmth rise inside his soul.

"And that one is the Grunkle's Nose. See how it's all lumpy?"

"Wow, it kind of does look like Stan's nose. What's the legend, Mabel?"

"Well, the story goes that one time, he sneezed so hard that his nose flew up into the heavens!"

"Makes sense. Speaking of which, did you hear him sneeze the other day?!"

"Oh my gosh, _yes_! I think his car starts quieter!!"

They carried on in this manner, both starting to doze off in the comfortable night. Right as Dipper was about to suggest they head back inside, something rustled in the bushes nearby.

"Did you hear that?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah," Mabel replied, getting up. She took a few steps towards the bushes, peering into the darkness.

"You might wanna stand ba-" Dipper began, but was cut short when a small, calico cat pushed its way out of the brush, yowling.

"Aww, it's a kitty!" Mabel crooned, squatting as the cat bounded over happily. "I haven't seen many cats around here!!"

Dipper walked up, bending down to rub the cat's head. The creature purred as it padded circles around them.

A twig snapped in the woods behind them, and the cat panicked, running off into the forest, and it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

"Come back!" Mabel yelled, scurrying after the animal. Dipper tried to stop her, but nothing got in the way between his sister and an adorable animal, so he had no choice but to run after her. She was fast, though, and because of his exhaustion he had to slow to a stop, leaning against an elegant aspen as he caught his breath, wheezing.

"Mabel!" He managed, but no response came. She probably ran ahead, he figured, walking slowly in the direction from which footsteps were sounding. Yet he couldn't keep up, and she kept getting farther and farther away. Dipper yelled her name again, but without avail. He glanced around himself, hoping to get a sense of location.

The forest suddenly seemed much larger than it was.

"Hello?" He called nervously, more as a reflex than anything. The silence rang in his ears.

"You've been abandoned," the woods seemed to whisper. Dipper felt a sudden chill, despite the warmness of the evening.

"N-no, that's not what it is!" Dipper whispered harshly. "She's here somewhere, she's probably just a few yards away trying to find me."

"There's no one in these woods but you," the wind said as it started to rise.

Dipper was too sleep-deprived, too paranoid, to panicked to tell whether nature was actually responding to him or if he was starting to hear things. "You're lying!" the boy yelled, not caring at this point that he was shouting at nothing in particular.

Night darkened around him, the trees seeming to hang over him with their long, claw-like branches, the underbrush grew thicker, the very stars went out one by one.

"Help!" He yelled, scrambling to find his sister, a clearing, the Shack, anything that was a little less claustrophobic, with a little more light. Not caring anymore, he ran as fast as his tired legs would allow.

The forest became more and more cruel as he sprinted. The soft moss and grass was quickly replaced by low-hanging twigs from the trees and sharp weeds which seemed to grow denser here, leaving little room for Dipper to run through, especially given that he couldn't see too clearly as to where he was going. Thorns ripped at his skin as he accidentally ran straight into a spiky bramble, and he cried out in pain.

 Out of nowhere, a tree root raised up from the soil, causing him to trip, and because of his inertia he skid on the ground, skinning his knees and forearms on the rocks and leaves to the point where they bled rather profusely. Whimpering, he crawled over to rest along a tree, trying to wrap his arms in his shirt to stop the bleeding. He shivered, the night having suddenly grown very black and very cold, like a void staring him straight in the face.

The trees surrounding him were growing very close together, and they were all lithe and had smooth, white bark. Dipper guessed they were aspens, there were plenty of them in this forest. It felt like a protected grove, the round leaves overhead like a sheltering canopy, and it made him feel just  little more at ease.

At least, for a minute.

Initially, he overlooked a very key feature of the trees, but as his vision adjusted to the night, he could see black markings up and down the trunks.

They looked like eyes.

 Very familiar eyes.

Dipper's breath hitched, and he tried to stand up and get away as far as he could, but he found himself too fatigued to move. He attempted to convince himself that they were just trees, and it begun to work until one of the markings seemed to blink.

He shook his head; it was just a tree!

This time, three pairs blinked.

Dipper felt his heart begin to pound, but he remained rooted to the spot. With each blink, the eyes started to glow until the boy was surrounded by a dull white light, though it was far from the comforting light he had attempted to find earlier, no, this was more like a searchlight from a helicopter.

Familiar cruel laughter rang through the air, and Dipper's blood went cold.

"What a fine grove of trees here! One of the finest in all the forest. And so quaint, are they not? They all seem to lean towards another, like they're supporting each other, or like they're sharing secrets among their leaves. I'm almost tempted to say that if one rose and ran off, they'd all follow! It's like a little tree family."

Dipper could only stare in confusion, trying not to panic from the unseen speaker.

"But what's this?" The voice continued. "A little Pine growing in a cluster of birches, how cute! It seems a little lonely, like an outsider trying too desperately to be a part of something. Look how small and insignificant it is. It's definitely not like the wise birches, no, I'd rather say it was more of a _weed_ , taking the nutrients from the other trees. I mean, pines are rather messy... Their needles shed _everywhere_! And the bark of birches is a lot nicer, they even have a _use_. All conifers do is smell weird."

The boy huddled in on himself, as if hoping he could become unseen, though he knew deep down that wasn't the case. Though the content was lost on his fatigued mind, he could tell that the voice dripped with mockery, and though the speaker didn't show himself Dipper knew exactly who it came from, and he knew that the intent was ill.

"But what do we do with weeds..." The voice pondered. "Clip it? Spray it with weed killer? Perhaps. I prefer a cleaner method... **By ripping it out by the roots**."

At this last line, the voice boomed, and the forest began to shift. Dipper shrieked as the roots underneath him suddenly sprang to life, clutching at his arms. He tried to get up but the plants were too quick, pulling at him, slashing at his body as he was dragged underneath the soil. His vision darkened, and the last thing he saw were eyes, hundreds and hundreds of eyes. Dipper started to suffocate, and his vision swam.

Memories flashed before him, and he recalled the stargazing that night, along with making up constellations with his sister. He started to smile as he drifted unconscious, trying to focus on this last final memory, but a final chilling thought ran through his mind as reality blurred with his recollections. The eyes above, they seemed to form into a constellation of their own, a three-pointed shape, one that threw him into a fit of terror. He screamed as the soil finally covered his face, and as the last specks of light faded from his vision.

\--

Dipper awoke still screaming from the dream, yelling so loud he thought his lungs were going to burst, though in his terror he cared little about that. He vaguely felt a pair of arms wrap around him, heard a voice whisper in his ear nervously, and something in his mind dully registered the gesture as something good, but he couldn't process it properly, not when the nightmare still blurred his vision. He still felt as though he was suffocating as he clawed his way out until he realized he was absolutely tangled in his shirt and blanket, which were consequently covering his face. Hot tears dripped from his face as he became overwhelmed by the senses from both the dream and reality. He found himself in a tighter hold, a warm pressure around his waist.

"You're okay, you're okay, you're going to be okay," came a rapid mantra. Dipper finally managed to still himself. He found Mabel clutching him, whispering as she tried to calm him down.

"M-Mabel?"

"Dipper! Dipper, you're awake! You were screaming so terribly in your sleep! Was it the nightmare again?"

"Yeah, another one," Dipper whispered, shuddering in recollection. He leaned into Mabel's grasp, holding on to something tangible, something comforting. "It's over now, I'm okay. I'm okay," he repeated, more for himself than in response to his sister's question. Mabel slowly let go, giving him a small, sympathetic smile. Dipper flopped back on the bed, still drained.

"When will this end?" he moaned. "I can't remember the last time I slept normally."

"Isn't there some sort of spell in your book against this?"

"I've been looking, but nothing seems to match up."

"Do you think we should ask Grunkle Stan?"

"No! I don't want to tell him this. He'll probably react all funny, who knows what he'd do? Maybe he'll kick me out for being possessed..."

"Grunkle Stan would _never_ abandon you!" Mabel retorted. Dipper was about to respond, but a word brushed a raw nerve. Abandoned. It always seemed to come up in his thoughts. He shuddered involuntarily.

"Mabel," he said slowly. "Can you promise me one thing?"

"Of course! It doesn't have to be one thing, silly."

"Just promise me you'll never leave me behind. Even if it's a race for a prize. Or stickers."

"I promise," Mabel replied, holding out her pinky. They linked fingers, shaking once.

"Feel better?" Mabel prompted.

"A little."

"Good! It's still a little early, but the sun is rising. Wanna go get breakfast? I don't really feel like sleeping anymore."

"Sure, anything sounds better than sleeping."

"To the kitchen!" The girl wailed as she and her brother plodded down the stairs.

Dipper finally felt a little at ease as he shoveled cereal into his mouth; he hadn't realized how hungry he was after everything, but he finally found his little moment of solace, and prayed it would last.

\--

Outside the kitchen lay an ornate rug with an intricate pattern incorporating a pyramid with an eye. The rug shuddered for a moment, and the eye blinked once and then looked around the room. Apart from the kitchen, the house stood still as if poised for something greater, as if the very physics of the place were in suspension. The whole scene seemed to reverberate with one thought.

 _Round two_.

 


End file.
